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Ahhh! Book release! Time to do all the things and still somehow get a reasonable amount of sleep at night. Or during the day. No judgement, fellow vampires.

I don’t know about you, but book releases really sneak up on me. (It sure did this year. I, uh, have a book out tomorrow. Yay!) I always feel like no matter how much preparation I do, I’m always forgetting something. This year, I tried to be a bit smarter. I had help making a plan, and I kept to-do lists.

It’s really important to know what your publisher is doing in advance, that way you don’t cover the same ground. If your publisher is going to do a preorder campaign, for example, then you don’t need to worry about doing that work yourself and you can focus your efforts elsewhere.

Keep in mind that even if your publisher isn’t doing much in the way of promotion, you don’t need to do it all yourself. You can hire someone or find an enthusiastic friend to get you organized. For me, outside help was key this year. I ended up accomplishing a lot more than I would have otherwise. (I work with YourBookTravels, but there are lots of people out there who can help with a variety of things for a variety of prices.)

No matter how you go about it, make this as easy for yourself as possible. And remember: you don’t have to do everything. You can say no to requests. You can delegate. You can eat cookies until release and let the Bookscan numbers fall where they may. Do what works best for you.

So with that in mind . . .

Everyone’s release duties are unique, but here are a few things to consider putting on your to-do lists: